Developing A Vision for Your Church

Does a Church Need a Vision Plan?

Every church clergy member longs to fulfill God’s mission and build up the church, bringing help, hope, and healing to the congregation. Helping your church discern a clear church vision and mission plan not only helps focus your goals but can also help get the community involved in the alignment of personnel, structures, facilities, and resources needed to complete Christ’s calling.

Developing a Vision for Your Church

Before you begin discerning your vision, understanding the vision of your church is essential. A vision is something you can see happening in the future. When it comes to a church vision plan, it is something you all agree that you would like to achieve in a certain period under God’s direction.

When you are trying to discern God’s vision for the church, it helps to ask the following questions:

• What was God’s original design for the church? Start with Acts 2 and remind yourselves of the original blueprint for the church.
• What does God want the people in our congregation to do to assist the community and the world?
• In the future, what do we want our facility and congregation to look like?
• Where do we go from here, and where do we start?
• Do we have a clear vision for a new expression/ministry of the Kingdom?
• What do we want everyone to think about when they hear the mention of our church?

How Do You Create a Vision Statement for Your Church?

For church visions to become a reality, you need to create a church mission, or plan, with goals to achieve. Once you achieve these church plans, your church will be better positioned to thrive.

An aspirational church vision plan points to:

• Where your congregation group believes God wants the church to be in the future (This can be anywhere from one year and up). Think more in terms of a compass than a calendar. At this stage, your vision is about direction, not programs or plans.
• The desired transformation in the community and throughout the world resulting in people experiencing an encounter with Jesus and God’s kingdom.
• A vision statement conveys what God desires to see in the future for the church and what the group should aim for in a specific time frame.

Church Planning for a Brighter Future

When you have a clear mission and vision statement and are committed to fulfilling God’s calling for the church, your parish will be positioned to thrive. Your stakeholders are likely to be more generous when they sense that your plans are well thought out and achievable. At the Center for Healthy Churches (CHC), we believe local churches should and can be the source of life and light in their communities. Our mission is to help build the church of Christ to bring healing, help, and hope to clergy members and those in need.

Who We Are and What We Do

The Center for Healthy Churches launched on January 1, 2014, to help provide expertise, guidance, and innovations to congregations looking to adapt to the new changes churches in North America face. We are mission-driven consultants dedicated to helping clergy and congregations find new energy and life in our new day and age.

With a national network of talented and gifted coaches and consultants, we are able to provide our services at affordable rates below what other organizations charge. We believe in the potential and mission of the church and help drive motivation to elevate the clergy’s organizational, spiritual, emotional, and financial health. To do this, we work alongside the clergy and congregation to establish a clear vision for the church. Focusing on the future of the congregation, we address complex issues, explore opportunities for growth, enhance communications, and build stronger communities.

About Our Team

Our team at CHC are trained facilitators with a proven track record of success working with congregational ministries. The group consists of industry leaders who care about God’s church and its clergy. They are divided into two categories: Consultants and Coaches.

What Are CHC Consultants?

These professionals work alongside congregations and clergies to cultivate greater insights and learning while helping to plan a better future for the congregation. We know the right steps your congregation should implement to help your church reach new and better beginnings. With a focus on process consulting, we help design the path needed to maximize expertise and local wisdom under God’s leadership. While we don’t have immediate, ready-made answers, we will guide you to explore sustainable possibilities.

What Are CHC Coaches?

CHC Coaches are well-trained, International Coach Federation (ICF) certified professionals who provide training for clergy to perform their best. Through strategic planning, we guide ministers with goal-setting exercises, while exploring and presenting fresh perspectives on enhanced decision-making skills, improved personal challenges, increased confidence, greater interpersonal effectiveness, and more. This helps them achieve better results in professional and personal environments. By utilizing our CHC coaching programs, you will see improvements in productivity, attainment of relevant goals, and satisfaction in work and life.

How Our Process Works

The CHC uses a blend of Spiritual Discernment and Appreciative Inquiry to help you build a process that is the cornerstone for growth in the church and helps build a strong foundation. We discuss things with your leaders to ensure they support your church’s vision, mission, and goals.

Once your leadership team is aligned, we move on to consider each of the church’s staff members’ job descriptions, and how they will fit in with the organizational chart. We also identify key priorities that are not addressed within the current staffing structure.

This can be overwhelming for some, especially for larger churches with organizational charts that are more complex. However, your CHC consultant will guide you through the process and help you discern what staffing model best suits your refreshed vision and mission plan. While all churches are different and have unique needs and an individual setup, our growth consultation will include the following for all:

• Clarification of congregational goals, vision, and desired outcomes
• Corresponding to the highest priorities of your congregation, that is the DNA that has marked your congregation from its beginning.
• Ensuring your alignment is essential and takes a healthy approach to staffing
• Assessing staff members’ strengths, callings, gifts, and dynamics. Are they qualified for the position they are in? Could they perform better in a different position?

Next, we look at how well other churches are performing and functioning. Are they struggling in some areas or excelling, and why?

What opportunities and needs does your ministry have and how can they be accommodated? Could they be met better by volunteers instead of paid staff?

Your CHC consultant can help you find answers to all these questions and solutions to any issues your church may be having.

Church Leadership Transition Consultation

One of the best opportunities to enhance a church’s health comes at a time when leadership transition takes place. While some leadership transitions in churches are unexpected, others are planned. How your congregation makes out after a transition is usually a key predictor of the church’s future health.

We have a lot of experience in ministry leadership transition consultations. Our coaches and consultants have helped hundreds of ministers and churches manage leadership transitions in streamlined and healthy fashions.

Interim Ministry Training

CHC presents the Interim Ministry Training. We based this training on the principles that Russell Crabtree developed in “Transition Apparitions: Why Much of What We Know about Pastoral Transitions Is Wrong”. Crabtree takes an evidence-based approach using a one-size-fits-all method of consulting in this work. We don’t believe that a one-size-fits-all method is effective since it ignores each congregation’s uniqueness. Each church has its own struggles and opportunities. That’s why our consulting process is tailored to each clergy member’s and church’s individual needs.

Let Us Help With Developing a Vision for Your Church

The Center for Healthy Churches offers several services that can assist you with developing a vision for your church. Our services include:

• Workshops, Speaking, Preaching, Educational Events
• Individual Coaching
• Judicatory/Denominational Consulting
• Congregational Consulting/Coaching